Montrose Lighthouse Shelter, Inc

Background Statement

MLI was formed in late 2016 to be a vehicle to organize and deploy resources for local homeless people and to provide them emergency winter shelter during the winter season after the people in a homeless camp that had been operating on private property were ordered to disperse.

Beginning in early December, 2016, MLI operated a 12-room, 48-bed dormitory in Olathe, Colorado. The dormitory had the primary purpose of housing H-2A seasonal non-immigrant agricultural workers who work in adjacent farmlands from May through November each year, and was returned to those purposes in April, 2017.

In 2018, a change in farming operations made MLI's use of the Olathe dormitory infeasible for the 2018-2019 winter season, so the City of Montrose generously made an unused housing facility known as The Brown Center available for use by seasonal agricultural workers and the unsheltered guests of MLI on the same shared basis as the Olathe dormitory: H-2A worker housing from May through October, and MLI guests from November through April. The facility was operated by MLI during the 2018-2019, 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 winter seasons. It has seven bedrooms and a Fire Marshall guest occupancy limit of 30 guests. The guests assemble each evening at a location in downtown Montrose and are transported by van to the dormitory, and are returned back to the City each morning. They are furnished hot breakfast and supper meals, have Wi-Fi access to the Internet, and to shower and laundry facilities at the dormitory.

MLI is an all-volunteer organization and has no salaried employees or officers. A per diem stipend is paid to the volunteers who supervise the dorm operations and drive the van for dorm transportation.